What You Don’t Know About Air Miles Can Bite — 2

A recap in case you didn’t read the first part of this series … here … we are talking about what a commercial vehicle actual is, as defined by the FMCSA (Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration) and what commercial vehicles might be exempt from the general FCMSA requirement for RODS (Record Of Duty Status), commonly known in the business as a “Logbook”.

If your vehicles fall into one of the groups that do not require the maintenance of driver logbooks, don’t jump to another subject too quickly. Many activities your vehicles are engaged in might “cross the line” into RODS territory at a moment’s notice. Work hour records are almost always required as well … and if a vehicle or driver goes into an activity that does require RODS, remember that you are going to have to be able to “reconstruct” the work hours of the driver, perhaps as far back as the preceding 10 or 11 days (7 or 8 workdays and the last time the driver can be shown to have been “free of duties” for 34 continuous hours) in order to prove he or she is “legal” to drive. These rules aren’t like criminal law, where the state has the obligation to prove guilt. The FMCSA can assert that you and/or your driver violated the rules and the burden will be upon you to prove them wrong. This is one reason I have always been surprised at the reluctance of so many businesses to maintain detailed and provable records … the cost of not doing so can be far, far greater than the cost of keeping the records.

OK, enough philosophy.

• NON-CDL Vehicles: If you have vehicles that do not require a CDL (Commercial Drivers License) to operate but that are engaged in Interstate Commerce you can still avoid keeping RODS if the vehicles do not exceed a radius of of operation (from a single location where the drivers start and end their workday) of 150 Air Miles. Take an accurate business planning software product such as Microsoft MapPoint and draw a circle with a radius of 172.6 statute miles around your business location. This is your “non-CDL 150 air mile zone”. If you can assure yourself … and perhaps an investigator … that your vehicles don’t leave this zone .. no RODS are required.
• CDL-required vehicles: If you have vehicles that do require a CDL and thus would otherwise require RODS but those vehicles do not exceed a 100 Air Mile radius of operation (115 Statute Miles) then make the appropriate circle for them and you are also “safe” to operate without logbooks for those drivers. You do get an extra hour per duty day of driving time, be sure to note that basically all rules are still 100% in effect, the only part of the requirements that are waived is that the drivers do not have to maintain RODS while operating solely “within the zone”.

So, what do these semi-obscure mileage provisions mean to your business? Well, they could mean a lot for certain operators. Are they something you should be considering? By all means, if they fit at all into your operations. But, as I have tried to point out, “the bold print giveth and the fine print taketh away”. Many folks who routinely rely on these exemptions could be in serious trouble if an accident cause3d authorities to “dig into” their operation. I suggest, as always, that businesses take advantage of inexpensive, high rate of ROI GPS Tracking systems to measure the performance of their business and, at the same time, assure that accurate,, automatic records of driver and vehicle activity are on file … just for safety’s sake. A comprehensive FAQ on these exemptions is here:

Nest section of this series I’ll cover a number of commercial vehicle activities that are exempt in other ways from the “normal” RODS rules. Until then:

What You Don’t Know About Air Miles Can Bite...Some More Clarification on Air Miles maps...More Government Control Can Be Good?...

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